MARY SCHEER: Forgotten women of the Texas Revolution

Mary Scheer

Published 3:17 pm, Thursday, April 24, 2014

On April 21, 2014, Texans celebrated the 178th anniversary of the Battle of San Jacinto, which secured independence from Mexico. Such dramatic events that played out within a relatively short period of time, it could be argued, impinged primarily on men—not women. After all, the Texas Revolution was in large part a manly event. Men drafted the Declaration of Independence at Washington-on-the-Brazos, men enlisted in the army led by Sam Houston, men defended the walls of the Alamo and defeated Santa Anna, and men voted and held elective office in the new nation—the Republic of Texas.

For the most part accounts of the Texas Revolution have supported this interpretation, mainly though the lens of politics, economics, and the battlefield, spheres from which women were generally absent. If the events of 1836 affected women and their lives, their participation and contributions have largely been depicted through the impact on their husbands, sons, and fathers.

In 1836 women, as well as men, resided in Mexican Texas. Anglo women had arrived in the 1820s with their husbands and families, crossing the Sabine and Red rivers or the Gulf of Mexico to begin life anew in the Mexican province of Coahuila y Tejas. Black women came as chattel property (or free blacks), while many Tejanas were already living there in Spanish or Mexican communities. The native-American female population, a sizeable but declining segment of the population, was also in the region, but rarely counted on census roles. As a result, Texas women of all classes, races, and regions experienced the revolution, either directly or indirectly, encountering its successes and failures, promises and disappointments, joys and sorrows.

While there is wide scholarship on the Texas Revolution, most of the many works on the revolution include women only briefly in the narrative—such as Suzanna Dickinson and Emily Morgan (the Yellow Rose)--but not as principal participants. For example, Anglo women such as Dilue Rose and Mary Crownover Rabb supported the cause in a variety of ways. They not only shouldered the burdens of daily life on a frontier, but also assisted in the preparations for fighting and replaced their absent husbands on the farms and in the fields.

Other women, such as the Bexareñas at the Alamo, have been almost forgotten. In fact there were six little-known Hispanic women, along with Suzanna Dickinson, who survived the battle and were then released by General Santa Anna. Afterwards, their fate was social and economic marginalization in an increasingly hostile and alien Anglo culture. While there were no female combatants at the final battle of San Jacinto, it would be a mistake to assume that women were not involved or affected at that site as well. Many women in the region used their skills to support the Texas army, such as Sarah Dodson who fashioned the first “tri-color lone star” flag out of calico and Frances Lynch, a “female Paul Revere,” who warned Texans of the approaching Mexican army at Lynch’s Ferry. Significantly, a woman--Margaret “Peggy” McCormick--owned the land where the engagement occurred and a defiant female image in the form of a goddess of liberty adorned the battle flag flown at San Jacinto by the Texan army.

Overall, the Texas Revolution had a profound effect on all Texas women. They were at the center of the conflict and contributed to the Texan victory in 1836. Despite their active roles and assistance in overthrowing an autocratic regime, the revolution did not significantly improve their lives or status. Afterwards, women continued in their traditional roles, tending to the day-to-day welfare of their families within the confines of a domestic sphere. Further, the implementation of English common law by the Republic represented a loss of women’s rights previously held under the Spanish legal system. In short, Texas women helped secure independence, but their revolutionary future—socially, legally, and economically—was far from “revolutionary.”

Mary L. Scheer is a history professor at Lamar University in Beaumont and editor of Women and the Texas Revolution (2012), published by the University of North Texas Press.